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THE 



JOHN JAY 
DINNER 



The Union League Club 



JUNE 24, 1887 




THE 



Union League Club Dinner 



GIVEN TO THE 



Hon. JOHN JAY 



BY MEMBERS OF THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB 



ON THE OCCASION OF HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 



June 24, 1887 



NEW YORK 

Sbc IRiilckcrbocher iprcss 

1887 



r; 



^1 

t 

-a' 






Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

1887 

2'6I 08? 030 



New York, June ist, 1887. 

Dear Mr. Jay : 

As personal friends of many years we desire to con- 
gratulate you upon the near arrival of your seventieth 
birthday, and, that we may have an opportunity to 
make manifest our esteem and affection, and our 
high appreciation of your long and honorable career, 
we invite you to meet us at dinner at the Union 
League Club, on some evening that you may name, 
as near to your birthday as your convenience will 
permit, to celebrate this happy anniversary. 



To Hon. John Jay. 
josErii n. choate, 

LE GRAND B. CANNON, 
J. J. ASTOR, 
THOMAS MILLHOUSE, 
GEORGE JONES, 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 
DORMAN B. EATON, 
WHITELAW REID, 
AUGUSTINE SMITH, 
WM. DOWD, 
JOHN A. STEWART, 
GEORGE BLISS, 
ALBON P. MAN, 
W. E. DODGE, 



WM. M. EVARTS, 
C. R. AGNEW, 
JAMES C. CARTER, 
JACKSON S. SCHULTZ, 
THOS. C. ACTON, 
B. H. BRISTOW, 
RICHARD BUTLER, 
CORNELIUS N. BLISS, 
F. D. TAPPEN, 
LEVI P. MORTON, 
E. H. PERKINS, Jr., 
JESSE SELIGMAN, 
SALEM H. WALES, 
ELIHU ROOT, 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 



JOHN L. CADWALADER, 
NOAH DAVIS, 
J. W. GODDARD, 
ISAAC T. SMITH, 
SIGOURNEV W. FAY, 
WATSON E. CASE, 
I. N. PHELPS, 
W. Q. RIDDLE, 
JOEL B. ERHARDT, 
A. VAN SANTVOORD, 
THOMAS DENNY, 
JACOB WENDELL, 
HENRY E. HOWLAND, 
ALEX. McL. AGNEW, 
SAMUEL P. AVERY, 
FRANCIS H. LEGGETT, 
HENRY H. BRIDGMAN, 
JOSEPH E. GAY, 
CHARLES BUTLER, 
JAMES H. DUNHAM, 
L. G. WOODHOUSE, 
HENRY CLEWS, 
WM. F. BUCKLEY, 
HORACE WHITE, 
WM. WALTER PHELPS, 
WM. ALLEN BUTLER, 
M. C. D. BORDEN, 
CHARLES S. SMITH, 
CHARLES G. LANDON, 
BIRDSEYE BLAKEMAN, 
WM. D. SLOANE, 
WM. P. ST. JOHN, 
H. HOAGLAND, 
CHAS. E. WHITEHEAD, 
EDWARD F. BROWN, 
J. D. VERMILYE, 



CHAS. E. BEEBE, 
THOS. H. HUBBARD, 
CHARLES A. PEABODY, 
D. F. APPLETON, 
WILLIAM HENRY LEE, 
ROBBINS LITTLE, 
DANIEL G. ROLLINS, 
F. A. POTTS, 
CYRUS BUTLER, 
JOSEPH W. HOWE, 
J. M. REQUA, 
WALTER HOWE, 
H. L. KENDRICK, 
GEORGE M. LEFFERTS, 
VINCENZO BOTTA, 
GEORGE F. BAKER, 
JAMES OTIS, 
GEO. G. HAVEN, 
JOHN H. HALL, 
HIRAM W. HUNT, 
BENJAMIN P. DAVIS, 
THOS. H. WOOD, 
JAMES D. HAGUE, 
JOHN H. HINTON, 
CHAS. C. BEAMAN, 
GRANVILLE P. HAWES, 
GEORGE MONTAGUE, 
RICHARD P. HERRICK, 
EDWARD MITCHELL, 
EDWARD H. AMMIDOWN, 
JOHN J. McCOOK, 
FREDERIC B. ELLIOTT, 
JOHN B. CORNELL, 
CHAS. E. BUTLER, 
W. H. DRAPER, 
ISAAC H. BAILEY, 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 



\VM. H. WEBB, 
M. W. COOPER, 
W. HART SMITH, 
J. W. DOWLING, 
JOSEPH H. BROWN, 
HORACE PORTER, 
BENJ. BREWSTER, 
THOMAS L. JAMES, 
LUTHER R. MARSH, 



J. M. BUNDY, 
LOCKE W. WINCHESTER, 
ALBERT REMICK, 
BRAYTON IVES, 
LUCIUS H. SMITH, 
A. G. AGNEW, 
JOHN W. AITKEN, 
JOHN K. CILLEY. 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNEK. 



[reply.] 

The Honorable Joseph H. Choatc, William M. Evarts, 
Dr. C. R. Agnew, Le Grand B. Cannon, and the 
other signers. 

Dear Sirs : 

I pray you to accept my sincere thanks for the 
most kind letter with which you have honored me, 
dated the first of June, and which I have received 
to-day. 

As personal friends of many years you congratu- 
late me upon the near arrival of my seventieth birth- 
day, and that you may have an opportunity, as you 
say in gentle words to whose significance I am not 
insensible, to make manifest your esteem and affec- 
tion and your approval of my career, you ask me to 
meet you at dinner at the Union League Club, on 
some evening that I may name as near to my birth- 
day as may be convenient. 

The familiar names, more than one hundred, at- 
tached to your letter, recall memories that embrace 
times before the beginning of our historic Club, 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 7 

names honored by the country, and which lend dig- 
nity and weight to your friendly tribute. 

I frankly accept the invitation so gracefully and 
cordially tendered, and as my birthday falls on 
Thursday, the 23d of June, I will, in accordance with 
your request, name the evening of the 24th. 

I am, gentlemen, with sincere regards and grateful 
acknowledgments. 

Faithfully yours, 

John Jay. 
Bedford House, 

Katonah, New York, 

June II, 1887. 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 



^uuitctl CSxtcsts. 



Rt. Rev. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D., 
Bishop of New York. 

Rt. Rev. ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, D.D., 
Bishop of Western New York. 

Hon. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

Rev. LEA LUQUER. 

Rev. WM. S. RAINSFORD, D.D. 

Dr. JOHN HENRY HOBART. 

E. RANDOLPH ROBINSON. 

WM. H. SCHIEFFELIN. 

WILLIAM JAY. 

HENRY G. CHAPMAN. 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 



Little Neck clams 

Consomme aux etoiles Americaine 
Green turtle, clear 

Bouchees au bons vivants 

Salmon de Kennebec, sauce Hollandaise 

White-bait i I'Anglaise 

Concombres panache 

Lamb chops pane, au Marechal 

Spring chicken grillee, maitre d'hotel 

Bermuda potatoes, chateaux 

Long Island green peas 

Sweet-breads, braise aux truffles 

Frog legs a I'Union League 
Jardiniere of spring vegetables 

Hot and cold asparagus 

PUNCH EN SURPRISE 

Grass plovers sur canape and English 

snipe au cresson 

Lettuce and tomato salad 

Nougats pyramides Ruches \ miel 

Glaces de fantaisies Praises 

Gelee decore 

Gateaux Mottoes 
Fruits 

Caf^ 



HAUT BARSAC 



AMONTILLADO SUPERIOR 



LIEBFRAUMILCH 



MOUTON ROTHSCHILD 



ROEDERER GRAND SEC 



VEUVE CLICQUOT 
YELLOVir LABEL 

PERRIER JOUET 



COTE ROTIE 



LIQUEURS 



The Following ls a Report of the Address Made 

AT A Dinner Given in Honor of Hon. John 

Jav, at THE Union League Club, New 

York, Friday, June 24, 1887. 



Mr. Choate (in the Chair): — Gentlemen : Over 
looking many a better man, my associates on the 
Committee have compelled me, in obedience to the 
kind suggestion of Mr. Jay, to occupy the Chair this 
evening. These walls have looked down on many a 
festive banquet, but I believe never upon such a 
genuine love-feast as this. [Applause] We have 
assembled to-night to celebrate the seventieth birth- 
day of an honest man. [Applause] It was Washing- 
ton, I believe, who, after achieving higher honors and 
more enduring titles than ever fell to the lot of any 
American, expressed the hope that he might always 
have the firmness and the virtue to deserve what he 
considered the highest distinction to which human 
nature could attain, — the character of an honest man. 
[Applause] 

I am no master of the language of flattery, and 



12 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

I do not propose to use it on this occasion ; but as 
I have had the honor to propose this tribute of 
friendship, I may perhaps be permitted, on your be- 
half, to say to our distinguished guest, that he owes 
it, not so much to the fact, that he has attained the 
limit of threescore years and ten, honorable as that 
distinction is. Other men have done that without 
receiving such a reward as this. He owes it not al- 
together to the exalted position that he has always 
occupied, or to the excellent public service that he 
has been able to render ; but he owes it first and fore- 
most, to the love we all bear him. [Great applause] 
It is a tribute to that warm heart and that cheerful 
temper which has always commanded the admiration 
and affection of his associates, no matter how spirited 
the controversies, in which he was never slow to take 
an active part. [Applause] There is hardly a gentle- 
man within the sound of my voice, I suppose, who 
cannot recall and acknowledge with pleasant memory 
many a kind word and act, many a courteous atten- 
tion that he has received from the hands of Mr. Ja)^ 
For myself I may say that when I came to this city, 
an absolutely homeless stranger, thirty-two years ago, 
he welcomed me, for no reason that I could discover, 
but the warmth of his own heart, to his own hospi- 
table home, the Jay mansion at Bedford, rich with 
the traditions of his historic race ; and at his fireside. 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 1 3 

and by his table, I enjoyed many of the happiest 
hours of my youth. And I have no doubt that 
many a gentleman Iiere can recall many a similar 
act of kindness and courtesy received at his hands. 
And so with gratitude and affection we congratu- 
late him upon his honorable life. We express our 
hearty sympathy with him in the almost royal jubilee 
of his golden wedding ; and we extend to him here 
to-night, the right hand of fellowship. [Great ap- 
plause] As the Chairman on such an occasion as 
this is nothing if not personal, I may be per- 
mitted further to refer to that spotless purity of 
life, which is the richest possession that any man 
can attain, in the lioht of which all the o-litter of 
wealth and all the glories of office fade wretchedly 
away. When I read in my boyhood that matchless 
tribute that Daniel Webster paid to the Chief Jus- 
tice, when he said that "the spotless ermine of the 
judicial robe touched nothing less spotless than 
itself when it fell upon the shoulders of John Jay, " 
— [great applause] — when I read that, I supposed 
that it was a personal tribute to a personal and indi- 
vidual trait in that great historic American ; but when 
I came to know these Jays of later time, I discovered 
that it was only the regular family trait exhibited 
in the noble person of the sire, and which, according 
to the true law of heredity, has been transmitted 



14 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

with the Jay homestead in the regular line of family 
descent. [Laughter and applause] Why, some of 
us have known five of these generations : some by 
repute and tradition, and some by personal contact 
and acquaintance ; and never once have we known 
that shining talent to fail. How strong and how true 
then must the strain have been in this our honored 
guest, in his heart and his loins to enable him to 
transmit it to his descendants as pure as he re- 
ceived it from his sire. | Applause] 

While the time for this occasion has been 
happily chosen, (for when a man reaches seventy 
all his faults as well as all his virtue have certainly 
been found out,) this place where we are gathered 
is also the only place where it could have been 
properly celebrated. [Applause] As one of the 
founders of this historic Club ; as its President for 
a longer period of years than any other incumbent 
of the office ; as the unswerving champion of its 
principles, and the promotor of its dignity and its 
usefulness, his life for the last twenty-five years has 
been among its happiest traditions. And when you 
look upon the eventful period of his administration, 
comparing it with all that went before and after, I 
think we may fairly say, at least those of us 
who have enjoyed the same distinction after him, 
that however faithfully we have tried to follow in his 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 15 

footsteps, the administration of each one of his suc- 
cesssors has only tended by the contrast to make his 
shine all the brighter and the stronger. [Applause] 
You will hardly expect me to review all the public 
services which our distinguished guest has been able 
to render ; but I think in all modesty it may be said 
that he always, whatever might be the consequences, 
has been true to his own convictions, and has always 
lived up to his light. [Applause] His service 
has been an unselfish service, and he has never 
sought office or honor as a reward for what he has 
been able to do. [Applause] When I first made his 
acquaintance he was of the age of thirty-eight, active 
at the Bar, and the well-known and much-abused 
counsel of the Underground Railroad. [Laughter] 
Now, railroad lawyers, as you know, have always 
been subjects, more or less, of suspicion and abuse. 
[Laughter] But I believe that no one of them in 
all history ever suffered the obloquy which fell upon 
Mr. Jay for his self-sacrificing devotion to that mys- 
terious client of his. [Laughter] His fees, too, I 
fear, in that splendid service, were quite inadequate 
when compared with the compensation which other 
railroads pay. [Laughter] Our friend, Mr. Depew, 
will correct me if I am wrong. [Laughter] But I 
think they were miserably small in comparison with 
what other railroads have sometimes in later times 



1 6 THE JOHN J A y DINNER. 

been compelled to pay. [Laughter] But the ver- 
dict of history has transmuted all that abuse and 
ignominy into lasting honor and glory. [Applause] 
To have stood forward as the champion of the down- 
trodden fugitive slave ; to have borne with silent 
submission the contempt of a depraved public opin- 
ion, the abuse of a corrupted press, and even the 
cruelties of the law itself ; yes, to have courted even 
social ostracism among his own friends rather than to 
abate one jot of the service that his conscience told 
him that he owed to the poor negro, this itself is 
eulogy to-day. [Great applause] 

Then came the war ; and in this presence I need 
not say how well he acted his part ; how he wielded 
the united influence of this Club always to main- 
tain that principle of unconditional loyalty on 
which it was founded, which was its motto and 
its watchword. Standing thus in the midst of an 
almost hostile city, we may modestly say that it 
did render some service to the Government in 
the days of peril ; and I know of no one man who 
is entitled to so large a share of that common glory 
as he who sits by my side. [Applause] It is true, 
gentlemen, that some of Mr. Jay's highest titles to 
honor and distinction have come out of attempts that 
have been made to brand him for doing his duty in 
the face of an unjust public opinion ; and even in the 



THE JOHN J A y DINNER. 17 

Church, of wliich he has ever been a loyal son, when 
he vindicated the rights of the colored churches to a 
representation and a vote, according to their strength 
and their numbers, even there he lost caste. I will 
not detain you by dwelling on what may seem to be 
mere flattery to him. It is merely telling the truth 
in regard to his exertions. Why, look at it in these 
later days, when Mr. Jay has enjoyed the extreme 
felicity of being able, without severing any of the 
precious associations of his previous life, to join hands 
with honest men of all parties and all factions in 
fighting that subtle and insidious foe that has been 
sapping at the root of our free institutions ; I 
mean to say corruption and incompetence in office. 
[Applause] And to-day, as the President of the 
Civil-Service Reform Association of the State of 
New York, he is daily demonstrating that in spite of 
all that is said to the contrary, it is still even possible 
to be a steadfast Republican and an honest reformer 
at the same time. [Laughter and applause] He 
has demonstrated, too, that the private station is the 
post of honor, and that a patriotic citizen seeking 
nothing for himself can render real service every year 
and every month to his country. And if I were 
called on to point out to my sons the type of citizen 
best worthy of imitation on their part, I should pass 
over all the great generals, all the great magistrates, 



1 8 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

all the great public officials, whose places are so 
largely filled by accident, and point them to the 
private citizen who was ever ready to render service in 
any good cause ; to promote any needed reform ; and 
who, seeking and taking nothing for himself, yielded 
every thing to the public good. [Great applause] 

And so, gentlemen, in your names I congratulate 
our distinguished guest, that his seventy years find 
him still having- a sound mind and a warm heart and a 
cheerful temper, in a sound body ; and find him, too, 

" Possessed of all that should accompany old age, 
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." 

And so, in your name I welcome him, and I ask you 
all to fill your glasses and to drink a bumper to his 
health. [Three cheers for John Jay] Now, gentle- 
men, I have the extreme felicity of presenting to you 
our guest of the evening, Mr. John Jay. [Great 
applause] 

RESPONSE BY THE HON. JOHN JAY. 

Mr. Choate and Gentlemen : I knew it would be 
difficult, and I find it simply impossible, to respond 
fittingly to this most gracious tribute and to the 
touching and altogether too flattering words that 
have been spoken by Mr. Choate ; even while I feel 
how largely this tribute is due to your devotion to 
the principles that have united us in the Union 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 1 9 

League Club. Your kind letter, with its familiar 
signatures, its congratulations, its assurances of re- 
gard and affection, touched me deeply. It revived 
the memories and the friendships of a lifetime. It 
recalled the companions and fellow-students of my 
youth and my early associates in the law, those 
with whom I had taken counsel in my work abroad 
and at home. It came from judges who had main- 
tained the ancient dignity of the Bench ; from 
lawyers who had more than upheld the traditional 
learning, ability, and eloquence of the American Bar : 
from statesmen and diplomats, whose names belong 
to our national history — from civilians and soldiers, 
who have performed great services for this city, the 
State, and the nation. It came from those whose 
generous wealth, whose philanthropy, whose devotion 
to the interests of the poor are known to all ; 
from those who represent our progress in science 
and education, our commerce, foreign and domestic, 
and the great enterprises, industries, and railroads 
which centre in this city. It came from editors 
and authors whose vigorous stamp has been im- 
pressed upon the press of this country and upon 
our literature ; from those to whom the country 
is indebted for the progress of art, and in great 
measure for the Metropolitan Museum and the 
Bartholdi Statue. This greeting comes from the 



20 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

most earnest and able advocates of reform in the 
national, State, and municipal service, and from 
those who have cooperated in Christian work and in 
the promotion of religious freedom. Nor am I in- 
sensible, gentlemen, to the great honor done me on 
this occasion by your distinguished guests, among 
whom I recognize one whose very presence is a 
benediction. 

Then, gentlemen, this greeting comes from the 
Union League Club, with which I have been so long 
and intimately connected ; the Club on which Lin- 
coln leaned during the darkest hours of the rebellion ; 
the Club whose name, Sherman told us, was familiar 
to his soldiers on the march to the sea ; the Club 
which saved the loyalty of New York ; which ar- 
rested the bold project of making it a rebel city and 
converted it into the loyal centre of devotion to the 
Union ; the Club that stood by Acton, Kennedy, 
and Harvey Brown when they suppressed the riots 
of 1863 — [great applause] — the riots so graphically 
described in a recent volume entitled "The Volcano 
beneath the City," and the writer of that volume 
very properly reminds us that the volcano still exists. 
It is the Club which raised regiments for Hancock, 
and the black regiments, the presentation of whose 
colors, and their march down Broadway, attended by 
the Club, undoubtedly influenced the policy of the 



THE JOHN JA Y DINNER. 21 

Government. It is the Club which received with 
honor Grant and Sherman, Mead and Sheridan, Han- 
cock and Hooker, Warren and Burnside, Farragut 
and Dupont, Winslow and Gushing, and which 
greeted cordially our foreign friends, including Lord 
Houghton and Mr. Forster, whom you, sir, so elo- 
quently received. Lastly, gentlemen, it is the Club 
which at the close of the rebellion was first and 
foremost to extend a cordial welcome to our oppo- 
nents who frankly accepted the issue of the war. 
[Applause] 

Remembering all these things and a thousand 
more, and tenderly recalling the long line of our 
cherished dead, more than four hundred in number, 
who as members of this Club shared with us the 
glory of our triumph in perpetuating and com- 
pleting the work of the founders of the Republic, 
and making its declaration of man's equal right to 
freedom not a glittering generality but a living 
letter, it is impossible for me to respond as I would 
like to do to the flattering words so eloquently 
spoken, and to the historic memories so pleasantly 
recalled. But one thing, gentlemen, goes without 
saying. One thing our long association enables you 
to understand perfectly, however imperfect my ex- 
pression of it, and that is my heartfelt appreciation of 
your kindness and the deep sincerity of my thanks. 



22 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

You will not expect me, gentlemen, in acknowledg- 
ing your congratulations on the completion of my 
seventieth birthday, to refer to the memorable pro- 
gress of science and civilization during that period. 
But in this we are agreed: that 'the preservation of 
our Republic, with the abolition of slavery, consti- 
tutes the greatest event of those seventy years ; far 
more important in historic dignity and lasting bene- 
fits to mankind, than all the changes in the map of 
Europe which are but temporary markings in the 
pame of war. Of that g-reat event, no oentleman at 
this table needs to be reminded, for it was accom- 
plished with the constant aid of the Club by its policy 
and action, of which so many of you may say qiio- 
rutn pars magjia fjii. There are, however, one or two 
historic events which have a bearing upon the charac- 
ter and future of the Republican party, to which I 
may perhaps not improperly allude ; particularly, as 
of the anti-slavery men, the early abolitionists of the 
State of New York, I am one of the last survivors. 
The first is that the secession movement, which ended 
at Appomattox, began with the nullification of 1832, 
when the significant medal was struck inscribed 
" Jo/iii C. Cal/iojin, First President of the Southern 
Confederacy." This fact is important as showing 
that the Pro-Slavery policy pursued from 1832 to 
i860, the instigation of Northern mobs, the denial of 



THE JOHN JA Y DINNER. 23 

the right of speech and of the press, of petition and 
of debate, the annexation of Texas, the war with 
Mexico, and the Fugitive-Slave Act, are now ex- 
plained as part and parcel of the secession scheme. 

The next historic fact to which I will refer is that 
the anti-slavery movement, which culminated in the 
Republican party and saved the Republic and abol- 
ished slavery, commenced in an organized form al- 
most simultaneously at Philadelphia in December, 
1833, and the American Anti-Slavery Society then 
formed, which in 1839 had 1,650 auxiliary societies, 
based their constitution upon the constitutional 
principles in reference to slavery which had been 
declared by the Congress of 1 790. Those principles 
that society continued to hold, although disclaimed 
by certain Abolitionists, notably in Massachusetts ; 
and upon those principles, in 1854, the Republican 
party was founded. You may remember that in Jan- 
uary, 1854, when the first resolution was offered in 
the Senate, by Dixon, for the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, a movement to arrest that breach of 
faith was made in this city under anti-slavery 
management and with the assistance of members 
of this Club, as some of you who are present will 
well remember, under the heading " No violation 
of plighted faith " ; and a committee of one hundred 
was appointed to call a State convention and to invite 



24 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

similar conventions in other States for the purpose of 
staying the extension of slavery to the Territories, 
and wresting the National Government from the con- 
trol of slavery. A meeting was held in May in the 
Park, at which the principal speaker was the late 
Hon. Benjamin F. Butler. Delegates were appointed 
to the State Convention at Saratoga in August, 1854. 
That convention was presided over by John A. King. 
And in 1855, so admirably was the whole thing man- 
aged, that the Whig Convention dissolved their party 
and with the exception of the " Silver Greys" assisted 
in the convention which formed the Republican party 
upon precisely the same constitutional principles upon 
which the American Anti-Slavery Society had been 
founded in 1833. [Applause] The training which 
the voters who elected Lincoln in i860 and in 1864 
had received during the anti-slavery struggle, explains 
their intelligent appreciation of the war, which so 
many had completely mistaken ; and explains also the 
faith and moral independence with which they met 
reverses and solved the most important questions. 
These moral characteristics, despite the numbers wiio 
later joined them in their triumphant career, we be- 
lieve mark to-day a majority of the Republican party, 
and particularly fit them to deal with the great ques- 
tions and the un-American theories to which attention 
has been called by Dr. Strong, the clear and far- 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. ,5 

Sighted author of "Our Country/' in connection 
with the increased numbers and declining character 
of our foreign emigrants, points which were admirably 
presented by the President of our Club, Mr. Depew, 
in his recent oration at Saratoga-and questions 
which should be carefully pondered by thoughtful 
Americans. 

Now, gentlemen, touching the question of Civil 
Service. This Club took early and decided ground, 
and its statesman-like suggestions and example have 
told upon the people. In the canvass of Grant and 
Colfax the Club strengthened its influence and the 
Republican cause by announcing that no assistance 
would be given to any candidate of whose integrity 
and fitness they were not assured. Touching the re- 
form in the Civil Service it should not be forgotten 
how much of the credit of its inauguration belongs to 
the Republican party. They pledged themselves to 
It, and it is a pledge to which earnest Republicans 
hold themselves the more sacredly bound from the 
belief that a majority of the Democratic party are 
not prepared to sustain on this point the honorable 
policy of their chief. Next to the Civil-Service Re- 
form in importance-for it concerns the basis of our 
American system-is the assault upon our Common 
Schools, with an attempt to divide the school fund, 
which is being revived along the line of States, and 



26 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

which this Club has emphatically denounced as a 
crime. Our successful resistance in the State Legis- 
lature for some ten successive years to the passage of 
laws to connect Church and State in our public insti- 
tutions, to tax the public for sectarian teaching, and 
to subject the wards of the State to the guardianship 
of those who deny liberty of conscience, developed 
methods of procedure and indications of a bargain 
for the surrender of American principles in exchange 
for foreign votes, which invest the subject with the 
most serious importance, and call for an amend- 
ment to the Constitution. It is clear that unless 
we vigorously maintain American principles and 
American supremacy against this foreign flood, we 
may not always be able to save our American 
institutions. However formidable the problem that 
confronts us, we can invoke, as in the past, the all- 
powerful aid of the press, religious and secular ; and 
the national pride which we have known how to 
arouse, will uphold the men and the party which shall 
stand for American principles and a yet higher civili- 
zation. Herbert Spencer has said that America may 
reasonably look forward to a time when it will have 
produced a civilization grander than any the world 
has known ; and certainly those of us who, in the 
evening of our days, think at once of the past and 
the future, could hardly have a better assurance on 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 27 

this point than is presented to-night by this distin- 
guished assemblage, to honor the principles which 
we together cherish. 

And now, gentlemen, with a far warmer appre- 
ciation of your kindness and confidence than I can 
possibly express, I sincerely thank you. [Great 
applause] 

Mr. Choate : — Gentlemen : Close and tender as the 
sympathy is which binds us all to Mr. Jay, I do not 
believe that there is one man here present who has 
been in such close personal sympathy and confidential 
relations with him for the last thirty years as George 
William Curtis [applause], — especially in the old 
anti-slavery days, and in these hardly less important 
days of the great struggle of Civil-Service Reform. 
[Applause] They have worked shoulder and shoul- 
der always for the good of the country ; and however 
they may have differed, they have always labored to- 
gether for the same great patriotic end ; and therefore 
it is that in your name I extend a cordial welcome to 
Mr. Curtis and beg him to add his tribute to our dis- 
tinguished guest. [Great applause] 

Mr. Curtis spoke as follows : 

Mr. Choate and Gentlemen : — I remember the 
pleasant story of Jenny Lind, the singer, that being 
once at the convent of Vallambrosa, near Florence, 



28 THE JOHN JA V DINNER. 

she wanted to enter the chapel and seat herself at the 
organ and play and sing ; but the monks, as you may 
suppose, recoiled, a little affrighted at the proposi- 
tion, and declared it to be impossible. " Perhaps," 
said she, "it might be possible if you knew who I 
am." "And who may the Signora be?" "I am 
Jenny Lind," she said ; and instantly the monks 
bowed low, opened the doors, led her in triumph to 
the organ, and heard such an Ave Maria as they had 
not hoped to hear until they got to Paradise. Now 
the proposition of a great dinner at the very height 
of the summer solstice, I can easily imagine has 
caused many a good citizen, moistly meditating an 
escape to the mountains or the sea, to declare it 
to be absolutely impossible, until he asked the 
question which the Cadi asked of old, reversing 
the sex, "But who is it?" and upon hearing the 
answer, " It is John Jay," I do not need, gen- 
tlemen, to imagine, for I see, the same citizens 
eagerly crowding this table, resolved "to honor and 
cheer till daylight doth appear" the fidelity to prin- 
ciple, the moral courage, the steadfast patriotism, the 
unselfish public service, the well-spent life of a typical 
American gentleman. [Great Applause] I suppose 
it must be a little arduous to fill the position that our 
friend at this moment occupies. It must be a little 
trying to sit quietly at the table while friend after 



THE JOHN J A y DINNER. 29 

friend arises to declare how much he admires and 
esteems you. And our friend has not the consolation 
that we lyceum lecturers in the old days used to have ; 
for after hearing the President or Chairman of the 
Committee proclaim our virtues to the assembled au- 
dience, until our cheeks tingled to think what great 
men we were, he was generally apt at the end to turn 
around and say, " I beg your pardon ! What is your 
name ? " [Laughter] And on one occasion I re- 
member that having delivered the last lecture in a 
course and taken my seat, the Chairman requested 
the audience to remain, as he had a few observations 
to make ; and the observations that he made were to 
the effect that the Lyceum trusted that another sea- 
son they would be able to welcome the same or a 
larger audience, because he could promise them 
a course of better lecturers and more entertainino- 
lectures. [Laughter] Now there are no horrors 
for us in the application of that story. We know 
that we could not have a better guest or a better 
text than his character and career. A dinner 
on an anniversary of one's birth is in its nature a 
feast of reminiscence. One of my earliest recollec- 
tions in the city of New York is that of a New 
Yorker and his constant and unquailing effort to 
procure from the Church a recognition of Christianity 
by character and not by color [great applause] ; and 



30 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

to extort from the courts of law the presumption at 
least that an innocent man was his own owner. [Ap- 
plause] Gentlemen, there is nothing so insidious as 
prejudice. It is like a subtle poison in the air that 
penetrates the lungs and corrupts the very life itself. 
And nowhere is that prejudice more powerful than 
in what is called Society. Nowhere does it paint 
generous and gentle natures more fatally than within 
that charmed circle. To withstand it requires a fine- 
ness of moral fibre, a steadiness of courage, an un- 
wearied urbanity. In the days to which I allude, that 
prejudice was socially supreme. It swayed society at 
its will. It denounced every effort to give to other 
men than ourselves the rights that we enjoy. And 
in the murky twilight of that time the absolute recti- 
tude and lofty purpose of that young New Yorker 
shone like an enchanted armor. He taught younger 
men than himself the true aim and the true spirit of 
public life ; and he taught them also that in the most 
vital and tremendous controversies, however bitter 
and unjust might be hostility and hatred, it was still 
possible to be active, alert, efficient, absolutely un- 
compromising, and yet not cease to be a gentleman. 
[Great applause] You remember in Byron's poem 
when the mother of the unhappy son taunted him 
with his deformity he looked at her bitterly and 
hissed out his reply, " I was born so, mother." We 



_ THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 3 1 

reverse the picture. The young New Yorker of 
whom I speak, the friend of the unfortunate, the 
friend of the oppressed, whose flying- feet brought 
them to his door, sure of succor, when he was reviled, 
not for his deformity but for his moral graces and his 
virtues, might well have replied with all the splendor 
of his grandfather's civic fire blazing from his eyes, 
with all the steady fidelity of his father, and the old 
faith of his race : " Gentlemen, it is in vain. I was 
born to this service ; I was elected to it by the race 
from which I sprang." [Applause] It is but natural 
that the champion of personal freedom should 
presently be the advocate of the liberty of official 
service. He had seen the abolition of slavery. He 
naturally demanded the emancipation and the self- 
respect of the civil office-holder. I do not think that 
he was drawn to this cause by any conviction that a 
letter-carrier would be a more efficient public servant 
if he was able to tell us all about the interior of Sym- 
me's hose ; nor that a man would probably be a bet- 
ter night-watchman if he could explain to us what 
had become of the lost pleiad. I suppose rather that 
he saw that the principles of public business in 
public offices were precisely the same principles that 
prevail in private offices ; and that the practice 
of making the entire civil service of this country in 
its minor administrative branches, simply the spoils 



32 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

of a victorious party, necessarily destroyed the very 
function of party in a republic, necessarily degraded 
our politics, necessarily turned every election into a 
mere strife for plunder, and necessarily made the boys, 
with all that that word implies, instead of the men, 
with all that that word means, the arbiters of Amer- 
ican destiny. [Applause] I told you that we certainly 
could not have a better text than his character and 
career. But we must really respect the modesty of 
human nature. We must not kindle such a fire in 
his cheeks that he will consume before our eyes in 
his own blushes. [Laughter] You remember Dr. 
Holmes says in the person of his poet, after a certain 
catastrophe : " And since, I never dare to write as 
funny as I can." I confess, gentlemen, I do not dare 
to speak all the truth that I might. Perhaps our 
friend begins to suspect our feeling for him. Perhaps 
he begins to believe that his life was not ill worth 
living, since it had the approval of his own conscience, 
and the approval of such a company as his eyes see 
beforehimat this moment. No: I do not dare to tell 
all the truth about him, but certainly, gentlemen, I can 
recall to you the lines of Pope in his letter to Addison : 

" Statesman yet friend of truth, of soul sincere, 
In action faithful and in honor clear ; 
He broke no promise, served no private end ; 
He gained no title and he lost no friend." 

[Great applause] 



TFIE JOHN JA V DINNER. 33 

Mr. Choate .-—Gentlemen : Mr. Jay in all these sev- 
enty years has been so closely identified with the re- 
ligious organization in which he was born, that I am 
sure I am not asking too much of our honored o-uest 
Bishop Potter, in inviting him to add his greeting to 
this loyal son of the Church. [Applause] 

Bishop Potter spoke as follows : 

There are reasons, gentlemen, for this introduction 
on the part of the Chairman, which are not known 
to all those within the sound of my voice this 
evening. It has been Mr. Choate's good or ill 
fortune repeatedly to be mistaken for me [laughter], 
and when he refers with such confidence to the 
sentiment of the Church, he recollects, perhaps, 
that incident in his career when, riding up Broadway 
in an omnibus one afternoon, after the toils of a lono- 
day in the court-room, he was addressed by a devout 
female who sat by his side, who said to him : " Dr. 
Potter, when do you deliver the next of that course 
of lectures on the Christian virtues, of which I have 
had so much pleasure in hearing two or three ? " 
It was this incident that gave me at one time great 
hopes for Mr. Choate. [Laughter] And in view of 
the recent public interest in an enterprise in which I 
have asked the sympathy of my fellow-citizens, I have 
even ventured to think of him as eligible for a can- 



34 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

onry, believing that in those more confidential rela- 
tions to the o-entler sex which the confessional miq-ht 
require, nobody in my professional experience could 
be counted upon for more eminent success in the art 
of cross-examination ! 

He has rightly stated, gentlemen, the very cordial 
sympathy with which I come here to-day. The name 
of .our distinguished guest is associated, as already we 
have been eloquently reminded by your Chairman 
and by Mr. Curtis, with an ancestry and an era in 
our country's history which have had not a little to 
do with its subsequent glory and prosperity. At the 
beginning of our national life, wisely shaping its 
policy and so largely determining its future, were 
illustrious men like the elder Jay, who, great as they 
were in intellect, were greater still in character. We 
are accustomed to say that they were greater in intel- 
lect than their descendants, and to speak of our own 
age as less distinguished for mental vigor than the 
age of the founders of the Republic. That state- 
ment is not, I think, borne out by the facts, nor in 
anywise consistent with the remarkable achievements 
of the Generation in which we are living-. Never were 
there more abundant illustrations of the presence, in 
our national history, of acute minds, far-seeing, fertile, 
and vigorous. The great commercial enterprises of 
our day afford a field for the exercise of the highest 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 35 

intellectual powers, and they are more and more 
securing them. But they are securing them for 
ends that are commercial rather than political ; and, 
more and more it is becoming true, as we are told, 
that our ablest men " cannot afford to eo into 

o 

politics." 

The loss from this to statesmanship is a theme 
concerning which much might be said, but I refer to 
it now simply to allude to a danger to which no one 
of us can be insensible. The engagement of so many 
of our best minds in interests that are, after all, largely 
material, contributes, inevitably, to the growth of na- 
tional and individual wealth, but not at all necessarily 
to the higher development of individual character. 
On the contrary, that may easily become sordid and 
pleasure-loving, idolatrous of Mammon, but not rev- 
erent of righteousness, nor unselfishly devoted to 
duty or to humanity. 

It is this nobility of character and this unflinching 
devotion to the rights of humanity that we are here 
to-day to honor. In illustration of what I have 
said let me detain you a moment longer, in order 
to recall an incident in my own early experience 
with which our distinguished guest is very vividly 
associated. It is one of the proudest memories 
of my life that the father whose son I am, on one 
occasion when presiding in his own Convention in 



36 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

the Diocese of Pennsylvania, descended from his 
seat in the chair, and appeared on the floor of the 
house as the advocate of the rights of colored men 
to seats on that floor, and made one of the most 
memorable speeches of his life. This incident in his 
career is indelibly associated in my remembrance 
with one of my earliest recollections of the Conven- 
tions of the Diocese of New York. It was an occasion 
when the rights of the same race were in question 
upon that floor, and when, sitting there as a young 
man, the only voice which I can now recall as une- 
quivocally lifted on that occasion in their behalf was 
the voice of him in whose honor we are assembled to- 
night. [Great applause] I shall never forget that 
scene, in which I am constrained to say the honors 
were not with the ecclesiastics who took part in it. 
The good-breeding, the absolute self-control, the 
unanswerable argument, the deference for rightful 
authority, and, above all, the severe and unflinching 
courage on that occasion were largely on one side. 
[Applause] And if I could have wavered in al- 
legiance to principles which were bred in my bone, 
and which were part of my nature, that allegiance 
would have been recalled and affirmed and con- 
firmed beyond question by the magnificent courage, 
the splendid and unanswerable argurrients, which I 
that day saw and heard. [Applause] The influ- 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 37 

encc of such a character can never be lost. In clays 
when it is so easy for one to drift with any tide, so 
hard to resist a popular current, so unwelcome a 
task to speak a fearless word, the name of John Jay 
will always shine preeminent as an illustration of 
virtues on which the very foundations of the Re- 
public must depend. [Applause] 

There are three strains, gentlemen, which have 
mingled in the greatness of New York. There is 
that Dutch strain, from whose loins some of us here 
have come. There is that English strain, with its stal- 
wart virtues, from which others of us have sprung. 
And there is that Huguenot strain which flows in 
the veins of our distinguished guest, and which has 
found in his life and services such conspicuous illus- 
trations. Who of us will ever forget that immortal 
picture of Millet's, which represents the Huguenot 
lovers ; the struggle between inclination and duty ; 
the girl trying to tie the handkerchief around her 
lover's arm, which, if worn, will save his life ; and 
that firm, persistent, gentle refusal to compromise 
duty even at the calling of love ! [Applause] Surely 
under that picture there ought to have been written 
these lines : 

'' I could not love thee half so well 
I.oved I not honor more." 

And he who is here to-night, who in his unselfish 



38 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

devotion to his duty, in his manly consecration of 
himself to every noble though unpopular cause, has 
so often illustrated those lines, may have written 
above his portrait, when we come to hang it in 
these halls, that whatever love he has given to kin- 
dred and friend, the supreme devotion of his life has 
been given to duty and to honor. [Applause] God 
bless his good gray head, and give him many chil- 
dren, and children's children, not only in name but 
in spirit ! [Great applause] 

Mr. Choate : — Gentlemen : Mr. Evarts, although 
not quite as old as Mr. Jay, claims to have passed his 
seventieth birthday, albeit the event has failed to at- 
tract the sensitive public eye and ear. He and Mr. 
Jay studied law together, and ever since they have 
travelled side by side in their honored and prosper- 
ous lives. They have divided public honors and 
private applause ; and always they have been true 
to one another. I call upon Mr. Evarts to address 
you. [Great applause] 

Mr. Evarts spoke as follows : 

When Mr. Choate did me the honor to ask me to 
join in the invitation to Mr. Jay, and I read the well- 
expressed, the kind and truthful phrases, I told him 
that I could not sign it because, in one point, it was not 
true. He had asked our friend to meet us at dinner 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 39 

on his seventieth birthday, and thus had left out of 
the count the day that he was born. I, adhering to 
the rectitude of these minor moralities, have insisted 
that I had passed my seventieth birthday, though I 
was but sixty-nine years old. 

Mr. Jay and I were students together, under an 
excellent master. When I came here from the Law 
School at Cambridge, and entered Mr. Lord's office, 
I found there, among his students, either just ready 
to be admitted to the Bar or just admitted and about 
to leave the office, this gentleman, our friend. He 
was already married ; and I thought how fortunate I 
had been in selecting for a forum of my professional 
career, one in which one of the greatest rewards of 
life might be reaped, even before admission to the 
Bar. From this you might suppose that we were near 
of an age ; but really we seem to be of two different 
generations, for his grandchildren and my children 
were schoolmates at St. Paul's, and in College. So 
much for an early start in married life ! 

I must recognize, as Mr. Choate has, the earlier 
and not less grateful interests which I found in Mr. 
Jay's reception of me, a stranger, coming here, not of 
the home or of the settled and prominent opinions 
then existing here, but a New Englander, the first 
of my lineage that had ever lived out of the borders 
of New England. I found this my future friend, set- 



40 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

tied already in his domestic affections, and surrounded 
by all the attractions which culture and wealth and 
good fame in family could surround him with ; and 
from that moment until now, I think Mr. Jay will 
warrant me in saying there has been no moment 
either at home or abroad, either in politics or in the 
movements of society, that we have not been boys 
together from that time to this. [Applause] 

One may readily be permitted to gain some dis- 
tinction for himself to-night, by the associations that 
he can justify between himself and our honored 
guest. The great Chief Justice, Mr. Jay's grand- 
father, and my grandfather were together in the gov- 
ernment under General Washington, one in the Sen- 
ate and one presiding over the justice of the 
country ; and it is a just tie of agreeable association 
between us that thus now we stand together, not 
broken in years, and I trust not on my part as (cer- 
tainly not on his) in repute ; with the same purpose in 
our lives of obedience to the Constitution and the laws 
and the integrity of the nation and the amplification 
of its authority and its power. We have not seen in 
our generation any permanent harm done to these 
great institutions. We still possess an unmutilated 
territory and an uncorrupted Constitution, which the 
ancestry of the present generation joined their labors 
together to knit in such firm texture that no vicissi- 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 41 

tudes of human affairs could shake them asunder. 
[Applause] But I had even a closer association ; 
for though in no part was there any affinity or con- 
sanguinity, yet my elder brother had received from 
my parents, as a name standing for public-spirited 
and pious traits, for unity of personal purity and of 
public power and strength, no name of kindred upon 
either side, but the name of John Jay. [Applause] 
And thus, as Mr. Jay perhaps would remember, that 
in his first introduction and his kind acceptance of 
my companionship, he referred to that as within his 
and his family's remembrance, that my father and 
mother had given the name of John Jay to their elder 
son. [Applause] Now, when two young men have 
grown, not old [laughter] but older together, year 
by year, in the same sphere, in the same paths of 
public service and of public relations, and then in 
all the activities and in all the vicissitudes that at- 
tend so many who launch upon the stormy sea of 
this great city, this great State, this great nation, it 
is impossible that we can feel otherwise than that, 
in the tapestry of our lives, the conciliated threads 
and colors are united so that we seem framed to- 
gether into what is the working of the lives of 
the time in which we live. But I have known 
Mr. Jay as a young lawyer, as an efficient, as a 
prominent, as a faithful actor in all that moved the 



42 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

minds, addressed the consciences, brought out the 
character of our contemporaries as we went on to- 
gether. I do not know, Mr. Jay, but I am quite sure 
in saying that there is no one present in this com- 
pany that can beat, for so long a period, the parallel 
lines of our lives. [Applause] Indeed I might say 
that outside of this company, and in this great com- 
munity of the city and of the State, as we date thus 
from our first step out of the province of education 
into the province of active life, you can probably 
name no one that can go further back and yet has 
held out as long side by side with you as myself. 
[Applause] 

I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Jay abroad 
under circumstances of great interest to the contests 
that were going on as the sequel of the close of our 
war. I had not the good pleasure to find him, while 
I was connected with the Government at Washing- 
ton, still in the diplomatic service, but I knew all the 
while that he was fulfilling his missions abroad, and 
all the while afterwards, as I had occasion to consult 
the records of his correspondence, that in every thing 
there, both of a public nature and in the more inti- 
mate and personal integrity, to keep untarnished our 
honor from the attacks made upon it there, Mr. Jay 
was, in the Court of Austria, on the high scene of 
diplomatic regulation and control of affairs there, as 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 43 

well as in the conduct of private relations, the same 
fearless, the same upright, and the same successful 
man in his conduct of affairs. [Great applause] 

Now, gentlemen, we are together with no occasion 
on the part of any of us but to speak within just 
bounds, and to shade, if there be need to shade, any 
of the features or the marks of the career of our 
guest. And if there be a continuous uniformity in 
our applause, it is simply that if our applause should 
cease or our applause should fail, it would be not his 
fault, but ours that we did not continue to appreciate 
him. [Applause] And now, as we are thus enjoy- 
ing this hospitality, which we extend to our guest, 
and thus deriving a lustre from his repute and our 
appreciation of it, am I not right in saying that there 
is no greater wealth in human life than a well-main- 
tained good fame, from the beginning to the end, on 
a large and open theatre of observation, when the 
virtues have grown and strengthened, not under 
shelter, but by triumph over temptation ? What is 
stronger than that sound proposition of Plautus : 
" Ego, si bonani faniani inihi scrvasso, sat cro dives " ! 
And that is the wealth of a life crowned in honor 
and in munificence to human needs. If riches in the 
lesser sense has monopolized too much the name of 
wealth, yet in wealth in this largest significance — that 
is the wealth in which such fame as that of Mr. Jay 



44 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

may well be a cause of congratulation to himself, then 
he is indeed rich enough. [Great applause] 

There is one gentleman present who can tell us 
how Mr. Jay served those lucrative clients of his in 
early times ; one who was his partner in the practice 
of the law for nearly a score of years ; and I call 
upon Mr. Charles E. Whitehead to say a few words. 
[Applause] 

Mr. Whitehead spoke as follows : 

Mr. Chairman, I think it was Lamb w^ho said 
there were three kinds of invitations to a dinner, 
and three kinds of guests who came. One came 
because he was invited ; the other, because he did 
not dare to stay away ; and the third, because he 
loved to come. In looking around these tables I 
think we can honestly say there is not a man here 
but came under the third class. We love to come 
because we are life-lono' friends of the ouest we 
seek to honor ; and we strive to honor the virtues 
and the character and the principles that his life 
enunciates. It was over a third of a century ago, 
I think on a rainy morning, that I came into the 
office of Jay & Field, and sought to get a clerkship. 
I was accepted at a salary of two dollars and a 
half a week. Aftewards I became a partner in that 



riiR joriN JA y dinner. 45 

firm. If I remember rightly the emoluments of the 
firm were not large. Indeed, I think, as far as 
emoluments were concerned, I would have done 
better to have remained a clerk. [Laughter] Not 
that we did not have good clients and honorable 
ones, but a great many dusky clients came there 
for whom we did a great deal of work, and who 
departed upon that narrow path latterly much worn 
by their white brethren that leads to Canada, and 
the only fee they left behind was gratitude. Indeed, 
we generally paid our clients to go. I remember 
many occasions which, if we had time, and the night 
was not far spent, I could speak of ; of this man and 
the other man, all fugitives for liberty who unerringly 
found their way to our office ; but particularly my 
memory serves me best of one gentleman with a 
charcoal skin and a yellow eye who was taken before 
the then United States Commissioner. The only 
person who we could find who was willing to assist 
in the argument was Mr. Joseph L. White, all honor 
to his name, and he took part in it. I say the only 
person because, in looking around for assistance at 
that time, at the Bar, there were not three men that 
we could rely upon to aid in such a case as that, 
when we had no money to pay, and nothing but 
obloquy to be heaped upon the person who acted for 
the colored man. We tried that cause for a day. 



46 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

and earnestly insisted upon putting in evidence — 
evidence upon the fact that the man, brought here 
in tmnsiiic for Texas, by being brought here had his 
liberty ; and we sought to give evidence to show that 
he was voluntarily brought here by his master ; and 
the evidence lasted, as we hoped it would, until a 
late hour in the evening, and the United States 
Commissioner adjourned the case over until the 
next mornincf. The next mornino; we came into 
court, Mr. Jay, with that gentleness of manner 
and sweetness of voice which you all remember, 
insisted that before any further evidence should 
be taken the negro who was the subject of dis- 
pute should be brought before the Court, because 
every man was entitled to be in court when evidence 
was given involving his life or his liberty. There 
was a sending for the marshal, and a searching 
around and whispering, and finally it was announced 
that the negro had fled the city. Mr. Jay insisted that 
the owner of the slave had spirited him away to the 
South. On the other side, and I think, with better 
show of reason, they insisted that he had gone into 
Westchester County, somewhere near the Jay Home- 
stead, and had spent the night there, and at that time 
was travelling north to Canada. [Laughter] You 
can imagine, with a client in that position, how 
small the emoluments that came to myself. No 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 47 

money but lots of gratitude, and the senior partner 
took all of that. But right straight along by that 
class of cases was developed the proposition that 
a negro man had rights which in a free country the 
law would compel us to respect, and at the same 
time and on every side, from nearly every one came 
expressions of hostility and anger, so that the advo- 
cate in passing in and out of the United States 
Court met nothing but taunt. And so year after 
year went on that implacable fight ; our guest with a 
few men here in the city of New York against all 
public opinion, against enactments in Congress, 
against the literature of the South which was carried 
through the North, against personal letters sent to 
the members of the firm and the clerks in their em- 
ploy, — all the time went on that fight to aid the slave 
and bring public opinion to the succor of the slave in 
his effort to escape. That fight was carried on not 
only there, but in the clubs and before that venerable 
and dignified body of the Church, which is represented 
here to-night by one of its most eloquent bishops. 

I recollect being present at a meeting of the Dio- 
cese which was held in New York, where our ouest 
to-night could not get the ordinary hearing of a gen- 
tleman, on his application to have a resolution passed 
by the Church recommending that the parishes of 
the city of New York should give their voice against 



48 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

slavery being brought into the State of New York. 
And so it went on from year to year in the forum, 
at the hustings, in school and agricultural meeting, by 
press and by pamphlet, his voice was ever foremost 
for freedom, until, I think we will agree, the tide 
of public opinion has somewhat changed. And if 
there is any one thing which impresses itself upon 
my mind, for which we ought to render honor to the 
guest that we come to meet to-night, it is that at 
the time when all the opinion of this country was 
strongly, ardently, and bitterly arrayed against the 
position he occupied, without fear or favor, without 
being "an orator, as Brutus was," yet with a stern 
sense of right and a persistency which nothing could 
baffle, he went on in Church and State, in social life 
and at the Bar, wherever his name or his family 
name could give force, with his person and with his 
purse, and he helped the fugitive, and he helped the 
cause which ultimately came to be the great centre 
of politics in this country. [Applause] Now, it is 
easy for us here, under this bright light, to advocate 
those doctrines, but some of us forget how hard it 
was at the beginning of the century. Perhaps some 
of you may at some time have tried at a dinner to 
give three cheers, with a great hurrah, the first hurrah 
goes dead, and the second hurrah less loud, and finally 
you sit down abashed. But he, during all that time. 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 49 

gave those three hurrahs with unabated force. There 
was never any time that he did not go through the 
whole three, no matter who responded, and he never 
sat down. [Applause] In the life of Deveneau, I 
think it is, he tells of having been to the Society 
Islands, and mentioning to a chief that at the former 
island that he had visited he had had his brother at 
dinner. Said the chief: "Was he good? I wish I 
had been there." [Laughter] I think we somewhat 
feel in that way ; we have had our brother and he is 
good. I do not think that our guest would like a 
residence in the Society Islands. We all feel a sense 
of pleasure in having been here to-night, and we all 
feel the sense of orivinof a cordial handshake of kindli- 
ness and sympathy to a man who has been with us so 
many years, showing our love and affection, without 
any word for the press and the applauding public, 
but with a universal expression of kindliness and 
cordiality. It goes a little further with me. I was a 
young man without friends or acquaintances here in 
New York when I came into his office ; and I speak, 
not only for myself, but for every other clerk in his 
office, some of whom are judges now, and some of 
whom occupy active places in society, of the cordial 
sympathy that went out from him, and the hospitality 
of his house, which was never stinted and which was 
universal, to the smallest boy in his office, and was a 



50 " THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

pledge of affection and an encouragement in life, 
which has always been an example for me in my 
treatment of boys in my office ; and I always look 
upon it with a tender sympathy, not only for him, but 
for his wife and his family ; and a love which goes on 
unabated, and which will never cease while I have the 
power of expression. [Great applause] 

Mr. Choate : — Gentlemen : We must not punish 
Mr. Jay too severely for being so good. We must re- 
member that the hairs of his white head are all 
numbered. We want him to live on to his eightieth 
and ninetieth birthday, although perhaps we shall 
have to warn him that this mode of celebrating them 
must not be taken in precedent. But I am sure that 
you would not forgive me for bringing these festiv- 
ities to a close without calling upon the gentleman 
who now fills in this Club the chair which Mr. Jay 
so honored and illustrated. I call upon our friend, 
Mr. Chauncey M. Depew. [Great applause] 

Mr. Depew spoke as follows : 

At one o'clock this morning, at their Anniversary 
Banquet, the Veterans of the Army of the Potomac 
had adjourned, and the bummers had taken posses- 
sion, when I left that interesting assemblage to come 
here. It is a contrast. Though the hour is ap- 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 5 I 

preaching that at which I departed from Saratoga 
last night, the guests apparently are not the same ; 
and yet I came on purpose to be present here, not 
to speak, for I am not on the programme, but to pay 
my respects to Mr. Jay. I don't know why it was 
that Mr. Choate should have beoun these exercises 
by abusing me, and ended them by calling me up. 
[Laughter] He alluded to the fact that his fees 
connected with the railroad over which I preside have 
not been satisfactory. [Laughter] There has been 
no dispute in the directory of that corporation in re- 
gard to those fees ; and the statement has not yet 
been made to the stockholders, that the reduction of 
our dividend from eight to four per cent, has been 
on that account. [Great laughter] When Choate 
came to me with this paper, I told him I signed it 
with great cheerfulness, and thought it was a very 
happy thing to do. But Choate says : " I have a 
greater and a larger meaning in this than a mere 
compliment to Mr. Jay. You know I never do any 
thing without a fee. [Laughter] I want to establish 
the precedent, that every ex-President of this Club, 
when he reaches seventy years of age, shall be given 
a banquet. [Laughter] Evarts will get one next 
year, and that goes into the firm. [Laughter] Jack 
Schultz ought to have had one eight or ten years 
ago. [Laughter] We will count back and include 



52 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

him in. The next year I will come in. [Great laugh- 
ter] Twenty-five or thirty years from now you will 
have one. [Great laughter] Of course I signed the 
paper. Now the most eminent pathologists, or medi- 
cal men, have said that a man can live to almost any 
period if he only has an object in getting there. 
The medical fraternity of England say, that Gladstone 
would have died years ago except that he had a well- 
defined purpose in living ; and that he would have 
died two years ago if he had not determined first 
to liberate Ireland and establish Home Rule ; and 
that may carry him on a good many years. The 
medical faculty of Germany gave up Bismarck ; but 
although he fixed the limit of his own life at a period 
now past, his object was not accomplished, and he is 
going on four or five years more. The Emperor of 
Germany had a great mission to carry out thirty-five 
years ago, which he said he would do in four or five 
years. It is not done j^et, and he has vigorously 
entered his ninety-second year. And so every ex- 
President of this Club has an opportunity to live to 
be seventy years of age now that he is sure of this 
dinner ; and every member of the Association who 
is not President, hopes to be, and that carries him 
along. [Great laughter] The life-insurance agents 
are lurking about our door-ways all the while, because 
they understand this perfectly. 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 53 

I have a special object in being here, which cannot 
be shared by any of the rest of you. Most of you 
hail from New England. A New England man can- 
not properly appreciate Mr. Jay. I hear so much 
from New England men about New England, that I 
am inclined to think that they deem it necessary on 
all public occasions to make an apology for the fact 
that they left New England. [Laughter] But I have 
the honor to have been born in the same County in 
this State with Mr. Jay. His father and mine were 
born there ; and my grandfather, and great-grand- 
father ; and for four generations my ancestors and 
now myself have been rendering reverence, honor, 
and love to three generations of Jays. Westchester 
County had more to do of historical significance re- 
lating to the formation of this Republic and its liber- 
ties, than many States, and all the other Counties 
of New York put together. It contributed Gov- 
erneur Morris, with all his genius for affairs, and his 
superb accomplishments ; but it gave a greater man 
than Governeur Morris, John Jay. [Great applause] 
By his articles in the Federalist he created the senti- 
ment which formed the loosely united colonies into a 
Republic, and a hundred years afterwards put down 
the rebellion and established forever that this is not 
a confederacy of independent States, but a nation. 
[Applause] By his learning, his constructive talents, 



54 THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 

and spotless purity he, as its first Chief Justice, gave 
to our highest judicial tribunal a dignity and charac- 
ter which have secured for it the profoundest confi- 
dence of our first and second century. [Applause] 

I was riding yesterday around Saratoga Springs 
with General Sherman. We called at the house of a 
friend, and instantly the General's attention was 
occupied by a beautiful girl. [Laughter] I have 
often noticed that it is the peculiarity of very eminent 
men, seventy years of age, that whenever the oppor- 
tunity occurs their attention is occupied by a beauti- 
ful girl. [Laughter] He said to her: "My dear 
young lady, if I could go back to your time of life 
and start once more with all your fresh, bright and 
hopeful career, I would sacrifice all I am and have 
done, and take my chances again." I replied : 
" General, there is no man living who can share with 
you that sentiment. No one who has achieved what 
you have, who has reached the borders of seventy 
years, and has behind him a glorious career which is 
part of the history of his country, would be per- 
mitted by his countrymen to blot it out and begin 
life again. Such a record is treasured among the 
best thincTs we own and cherish and desire to trans- 
mit to our descendants." [Applause] 

We would not have John Jay bury his past and be 
restored to youth to try once more his fortunes. We 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 5 5 

know tliat he would pass an honorable and useful life, 
but in five hundred years the opportunity might not 
occur again for him to render such an incalculable 
service to humanity. It is one of the glories of our 
time that his character and courage protected the 
poor and helpless against prejudice and passion, and 
that he lived to see the victory of that liberty to 
which he had devoted his talents and his fortune. 
[Great applause] All of us his friends and proud 
to be so numbered, we stand about him to-night pay- 
ing in our individual ways, and according to our 
several relations, our heartfelt tributes. We honor 
him for his unselfish devotion to a noble but un- 
popular cause, for his public services, for his work in 
this Club, and we love and revere him as a man. 
[Great applause] 

Mr. Choate : — Now, gentlemen, I propose that we 
end as we began, by drinking the health of our emi- 
nent guest ; and after that what remains of Mr. Jay 
will be on exhibition at the door for you all to shake 
hands with him as you pass from the hall. 



LETTERS. 



57 



LETTERS. 



FROM THE RT. REV. DR. A. ChEVEL.-VND COXE, BISHOP OF 
WESTERN NEW YORK. 

Buffalo, June 15, 1SS7. 
Dear Sir: — It is truly a grievous pain to me to find my- 
self unable to join you and other friends of Mr. Jay, at the 
banquet in his honor, of the 24th inst. You say well that 
" a long and unbroken friendship " (it dates from 1833) 
iias subsisted between us ; and few are as able as I am to 
testify, from intimate associations, to the unsullied purity of 
his life, from his earliest years until now, when his public 
services are recognized and all unite to do him honor. Per- 
mit a friend, who is thus denied the privilege of saying 
something at your festive gathering, to pay a brief tribute 
to the character of Mr. Jay, without further reference to the 
private worth which has endeared him to the circle of those 
who best know him in his home, at his fireside, and his hos- 
pitable board. Inheriting the name and the virtues of one 
of the purest and most eminent of those who shared the 
confidence of Washington, and who, with him laid the foun- 
dations of the republic on the rock of Christian civilization, 
he has seemed to me to illustrate the typical American, as 
those fathers of our constitution designed the true American 
to be. Devoted unselfishly to the public good ; seeking no 
place in the public service, but accepting public duties at the 

59 



6o THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

call of the magistrate ; maintaining his convictions when they 
were unpopular, and seeking no rewards when the tide 
turned and meaner men found it convenient to embrace 
them ; with a lofty independence still contending with abuse 
and fearlessly enjoining the perils of the nation as he viewed 
them in the light of history and the experience of states ; 
who can fail to feel that his example is a lesson to his 
countrymen ? Differ they may with such a man, but all 
must agree that in the class of men of which he is a type, 
their very differences are the breath of life to legislation, 
and the animation of legislative councils in a free republic. 

What dignity, what character would be imparted to our 
laws, were they always the product of free debate among 
enlightened lovers of their country and incorruptible public 
servants ! 

Regard this letter as a private one, or otherzvise, as you 
please. The month of June is the month of all the year 
in which I am least able to be absent from my diocese ; it is 
filled with school and college anniversaries, in addition to 
my ordinarj' routine of work, and the commencement of 
Hobart College, in particular, at which I am required to be 
present, fills up the whole week, in which the birthday of my 
honored friend is to be celebrated. 

It is thus that I am " ruled out " and deprived of what 
would otherwise afford me the highest satisfaction. Let me 
thank you for your invitation, and wish you all the enjoy- 
ment of which I am deprived, in paying merited honors to 
Mr. Jay. Faithfully yours, 

A. Cleveland Coxe, 

Bp. of W. Nezv York. 

The Hon. Joseph H. Ciioate, LL.D. 



THE JOHN J A Y DINNER. 6 1 

FROM THi; REV. DR. HOBART. 

FlsuKiLL, lo June, 1SS7. 

Mv Dear Sir: — Were I not physically unable to be 
present, I would gladly accept your courteous invitation on 
behalf of the gentlemen who are to entertain Mr. Jay on the 
24th inst., to be one of their guests on that occasion. Among 
those then present there will be many as well or better fitted 
than I am to judge how suitable is such an expression of re- 
spect and esteem for a man who has fulfilled threescore 
years and ten of active life, in prominent positions " among 
his own people," with marked ability, recognized usefulness, 
and unimpeached integritj'. It is a position not easily won 
or held, and they honor themselves who honor him who has 
achieved it. 

My tribute, however, on this occasion, which strong feeling 
prompts me to render, is singular, in this respect ; it is that 
of a personal friendship for Mr. Jay which five and fifty 
years of close intimacy have cemented, and on the fair 
surface of which there is not a stain or flaw for which he is 
answerable. There is but one other person who can join 
me in saying this of our friend. Rarely, indeed, can such 
witness be found to any man, nor would it under ordinary 
circumstances form part of a public testimonial. Yet it 
illustrates our friend's character with a distinctive light, 
without which it cannot be seen in its full proportions, 
and that could be respected only from such a quarter. 

Greatly regretting my enforced absence, and acknowledg- 
ing again the kind courtesy of your invitation, 

I am most sincerely yours, 

J. H. Hoi;art. 
Mr. Jos. H. Clio ATE. 



62 THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 

FROM COL. LE GRAND B. CANNON. 

The Union League Club, June 23d. 

My Dear Sir : — I veiy greatly regret that domestic affairs 
obliging me to leave the city will deprive me of the pleasure 
of attending the dinner to Mr. Jay to-morrow evening. 

For more than forty years I have enjoyed Mr. Jay's per- 
sonal friendship, and prize the memories of our social relations 
as among the most valued of my life ; but there are higher 
qualities which his public life illustrates, which have won at 
home and abroad as wide a confidence and esteem as his 
name is known and honored. His life exhibits the possi- 
bility of attainment under our political system, as the most 
elevated type of American citizenship. 

It has been my further privilege to know Mr. Jay intimately 
in public affairs, and to be instructed and improved by the 
force of his example ; his well-ordered mind might yield on 
a point of opinion, but his sterling integrity never permitted 
him to compromise with wrong. Whether abroad or at 
home, the honor of the nation — the enforcement of the law 
— the advance of our political system — the integrity of our 
civil service found in him an intelligent and earnest advo- 
cate, and a willingness to work for their accomplishment. A 
singular instance of his nice observance of duties common to 
us all, and which it is to be deplored is practised by so few. 

It is rare that one who has reached the allotted age of man 
is permitted to present such a record, and I beg you to assure 
Mr. Jay that I feel most gratified for the occasion and oppor- 
tunity of thus paying a just tribute, founded on affection and 
the highest esteem. Yours veiy cordially, 

Le G. B. Cannon. 
Joseph H. Choate, Esq. 



THE JOHN J A V DINNER. 63 

FROM HON. WM. ALLEN BUTLER. 

Round Oak, Vonkers, June 23, 1SS7. 
My Dear Mr. Choate : — I regret very much tliat ab- 
sence from the city will prevent my being at the dinner to 
Mr. Jay to-morrow night. Me is high up on the roll of honor 
with the men who stood against the aggressions of the Sec- 
tional Slave Power when resistance was unpopular and ap- 
parently futile, and in this day of established national unity 
and freedom, which he saw afar off and whose blessings he 
has helped to secure, we do well to mark his arrival at the 
age of threescore years and ten by such a tribute as will be 
paid to him at the Union League Club, and to ensure its 
complete success by placing the arrangements in charge of a 
Committee of which you are the Chairman. 

Yours sincerely, 

Wm. Allen Butler. 
Joseph H. Choate, Esq., 

Chairviau. 



John Jay, a good brave man whose locks are white 
With frost of many winters ; on his brow 
Peace smiling sits, and thought with human love ; 
And in his deep blue eye, the quiet self-respect 
That upright living yields the pure in heart. 



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